How To Wake Up Like The Rich and Powerful

Your alarm goes off in the morning, you reach over and your hand hovers over the snooze button. Do you press it, or do you get your ass out of bed? We’ve all pressed it before. In fact, just recently I was in such a deep sleep that I slammed my hand over to my left and accidentally slapped the face of a girl in my bed.

She woke up screaming and once I calmed her down explaining how I mistook her face for my alarm clock, I about fell off the bed laughing.

I digress.

The morning ritual of the rich and powerful has always fascinated me, because of one very simple reason: how I start my morning either sets me up for a productive day, or a sluggish one. Could the rich and powerful be onto something that we don’t know about? I dived into researching anything I could find on how the true ballers and influencers of our world start their day and here’s what I found.

They Get Up Early

From my personal experience this one rings true. There is something about the newness of the day that invigorates me and get’s my ass in gear. Is it easy if you’re naturally a night person, or enjoy nightlife? Hell no, but many times you have to trade what you want NOW, for what you really want LATER.

“Over my 50 years in business I have learned that if I rise early I can achieve so much more in a day, and therefore in life.” billionaire Sir Richard Branson

According to this excerpt from Business Insider, people who make money and get shit done in a big way get up early:

“In a poll of 20 executives cited by Vanderkam, 90% said they wake up before 6 a.m. on weekdays. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, for example, wakes at 4 a.m. and is in the office no later than 7 a.m. Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Iger gets up at 4:30 to read, and Square CEO Jack Dorsey is up at 5:30 to jog.”

Other influencers, like the charismatic owner of the Dallas Mavericks, billionaire Mark Cuban, start their day BEFORE they even get out of bed (source).

“Business is my morning meditation. Business is what I like. I get up and I work immediately. I love doing this. Success is defined by waking up with a smile on your face, knowing it’s going to be a great day.”

Hell, I’m writing this article and I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet. Sometimes you have to work when the inspiration hits you. Fuck the Cheerios!

The cigar puffing Mark Cuban isn’t alone with his dedication to his business.

According to Forbes Magazine: “Starbucks’ Howard Schultz got up at 4:30 this morning. PIMCO founder Bill Gross is also up at 4:30 in the morning. Richard Branson rises with the sun, at 5:45, even when he’s supposedly relaxing on his private island. Tim Cook is a regular on the 4:30 email marathon, firing off messages hours before most people start hitting their snooze buttons.”

I wonder if Tim Cook is starting his day by looking out his window at the street for unmarked cars now…too soon for that joke? Heh.

So we’ve established that getting up early is key to how you start your day, but what’s next?

Sir Richard Branson living the playboy lifestyle. Yes, that’s him with a naked model hanging on his back like a chimpanzee clutching for dear life to a palm tree in a hurricane.

They Have ‘Me’ Time

By ‘me’ time I don’t mean that they draw a hot bath, light some candles and relax. By ‘me’ time, I mean that they focus on getting themselves in the right mode to start the day. Whether that’s prayer, affirmations, meditation, or push-ups on the floor (or all of those), this is what I call the Get Your Mind Right portion of the day.

It’s simple really: if I start my day instantly reading negative shit, then my head space is fucked from the jump. Instead, if I don’t jump to anything external i.e. reading emails etc, then for ME I can focus on getting MY mind right. For everyone it might be different, but here’s my schedule:

Eye mask for 10 minutes (looks like this and can be had for $5-7 at your local CVS. Shout out to LAPlayboy for this tip. I opened his freezer one time looking for ice and discovered his ‘Batman’ mask. After he explained the benefits I was sold on the idea.)

Pray (3-4 minutes. I focus on thanking God for his blessings in my life; this fosters an attitude of gratefulness)

Affirmations (I’ve written about this before, but this absolutely makes a difference if you do it CONSISTENTLY over time)

Light Breakfast (ditch the pancakes, unless they’re banana pancakes which won’t give you food coma. I opt for 4 eggs and 2 Turkey bacon strips. I put a healthy dose of hot sauce on the eggs and smack smack it’s tasty, healthy and is just enough fuel to get me going until lunch.)

Brisk 10 minute walk in the neighborhood (I do this I’d say around 3-4 times per week)

That’s it. Simple, quick and get’s me going. Do I do this every single day? No. A perfect example is today when inspiration hit me for this article, so I immediately started writing, however, I stick to that schedule around 95% of the time. There’s always room for perfection. Your schedule might differ, because everyone is different of course, but for me this works.

But, let’s see what some other gents are doing as well…

According to content marketer Neil Patel’s article in Forbes, he says that working out is a major morning ritual for many powerful and rich people. “Physical improvement is just as important as mental improvement. In fact, you can’t really separate the two. John Ratey, MD., author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, explained that exercise combats stress, improves mood, prevents memory loss, improves decision-making, and improves your intellect. A lot of people moan that they’re “too busy” to exercise. The truth is, they are choosing to do other things instead of exercise. Rich and powerful people — from the president of the United States to the CEOs of the world’s largest businesses — prioritize exercise.”

Whether you start your day with meditation, a morning run, hitting the bag, or checking in on your daily goals (or all of those) the important thing is that you make it about YOU.

In my opinion, silencing the ‘noise’ immediately works best. That means don’t instantly check your emails, social media etc, until AFTER you’ve gotten your mind right with self-reflection. I’ve noticed girls do this alot now. They’ll wake up and instantly grab their smart phone and sit in a trance for 20 minutes just pouring over their social media alerts. Discipline yourself and don’t be that way. Your social media alerts won’t disappear if you check them 15 minutes later after you’ve gotten your mind right.

They Workout

I used to workout every morning at 7am, but haven’t been on that schedule for quite sometime. For me the primetime to workout is around noon or 1pm, but that’s me. I don’t have an employer to report to everyday, so I prefer early afternoon workouts. However, many of you reading this may be working a traditional 9-5, so getting in the habit of knocking out the workout before you go into work sets up your day to be super productive and frees up your evenings for more self-improvement.

I won’t say that I won’t return to morning workouts because I do enjoy getting it out of the way ASAP, so the day is clear, but if you choose to do morning workouts, then you’ll be in good company. Billionaire Sir Richard Branson is a big fan of morning workouts as well.

“Being fit and healthy, There’s nothing like the endorphins from being fit, and the incredible endorphin rush that goes with that.”

Private jets and dimes aren’t even in the same dictionary as “Lazy Larry”, “Slobby Sam” and “Fuckup Freddy”.

Re-Cap

Get up early. This is the #1 staple of the rich and powerful hands down.

Get a productive routine down. Whether that’s meditation, prayer, or doing jumping jacks on the edge of a cliff, find what works for YOU and then stick to it. Your routine might be 10 minutes, or an entire hour, but don’t forget to make it ‘me’ focused. Get your mind right!

Workout. This might depend on your schedule, but research does show that early morning workouts make for a happy you and a more productive day.

Every single day we are given a gift and that gift is time.

What you do with it will determine how far you go in life. Do you want to waste it sleeping in, or do you want to get up like the rich and powerful? I can’t guarantee you’ll become rich and powerful following these morning tips, but I can guarantee you that you will never become rich and powerful wasting your day sleeping in and being lazy.

The choice is yours.

Here’s to a great productive week gentlemen; let’s kickass, take names and continue saying Fuck Average!

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